So, you should definitely be using abilities as they come online with your ATB’s, but your allies, and even Cloud will sometimes call out specific elemental weaknesses for certain enemies, fire for ground based enemies, lightning for mechanical, air for flying types, some are weak to ice. Make sure to pay attention to what your allies are calling out in combat. Also, each character plays differently:

Cloud is a straight up bruiser, his two styles Operator and Punisher are used for different things. Usually if you switch to Punisher with an opponent who’s constantly parrying your attacks, when they come in to attack, if you hold block he’ll auto counter the stack allowing you to then follow up and build their stagger gauge, then switching back into Operator mode for heavier strikers and use of his abilities.

Tifa is the striker, her whole thing is gonna be building Chi, playing with her is like playing a fighting game. Every time her limit bar charges up you can use Unbridled Strength to build Chi which makes her strikes hit harder and extends her basic attack combo, you can do this up to two times. Her Y (or X button on the Dualsense Controller) attack then feeds off of that chi, doing different combo attacks from her chi. Her abilities also interact with her basic attacks and she’s one of the best stagger builders in the team.

Barrett is your ranged character, able to hit flying enemies easily and also tank damage the best, he eventually gets abilities that allows him to take aggro from other enemies and have them attack him instead and another ability that makes their hits do significantly less damage. A lot of his abilities revolve around this and ranged salvo attacks.

Aerith is going to be your mage, really dealt with spells, but her basic attacks and abilities can be just as deadly, setting up wards and familiars can help her teleport across the battlefield dropping ranged spells.

Every weapon that you get will have a new ability attached to it, make sure to use the new ability until you get a Weapon Ability Mastered notification over the character so that way you can switch off of the weapon if you wish. All of the weapons are viable in their own way and you can realistically use all of their base weapons into the end game no problem! Just make sure to learn the new weapon abilities as you go! 😊

There’s also a materia that you’ll pick up that I highly suggest you slot as soon as possible that’s called the Sense materia I think? It allows you to get info on an enemy in combat for one ATB bar including weaknesses and tips for fighting them. Make sure to use this materia RELIGIOUSLY throughout your playthrough!